Governance

BEDROC is registered as a Trust under the Indian Trust Act. The three trustees—two alumni of the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), and an alumnus of IIT Delhi—have over 70 person-years of development experience between them.

Governance of BEDROC is vested with the Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary group carried over from the Steering Committee of the NCRC. Its members include development professionals, administrators, industry representatives, ICT professionals and technology experts. Though some institutions have left the committee after the transition, the following key individuals from these institutions continue to play a major role:

V Vivekanandan is a graduate in mechanical engineering from Madras University with a post graduate diploma in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), Anand. He was the Chief Executive of South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies, the largest NGO working among small scale fishermen in India, for over twenty years. He is currently working as a part time consultant on fisheries management to the FAO. He has positions of responsibility in many voluntary organisations and networks: Secretary Fisheries Management Resource Centre (FishMARC), Convener, National Coastal Protection Campaign (NCPC) and Convener, Alliance for Release of Innocent Fishermen (ARIF). He is also a member of the National Coastal Zone Management Authority in the Ministry of Environment and Forests. He is also a Board member of NEFTISH, a society of the Marine Products Export Development Authority. He has been on a number of Government committees and task forces including the task force for fisheries involved in the preparation of the 11th five year plan of the Govt of India.

Amarnath Raja is the Chief Executive Officer of InApp Information Technologies, an Indo-US IT Services company with offices in US, Japan and India.  He has over 20 years of experience in managing medium to large projects and providing solutions in Mainframe, Mini and PC environments; several years of experience in client - server environments, specializing in Internet, Intranet and Web-based Solutions. He has a personal interest in Civil Society Organisations and social development having worked extensively with milk co-operatives in India and developed systems in milk-billing, accounts & costing and sales and marketing.

Annie George is a development and management professional, with over twenty six years of experience in planning, designing, implementing and supporting development interventions. She is experienced in all aspects of rural management and specialises in Monitoring and Evaluation. With experience of the 2004 tsunami, Kosi and Nargis floods behind her, she is now focusing on disaster management.

Ahana Lakshmi has a PhD in environmental science and is a guest lecturer at the Anna University Chennai in areas related to environment and coastal management. She has done several consultancies with various organisations such as the ICSF, the FAO (FIMSUL), UNISDR (Project Selamat) and UNEP (GPA-LBA). She also lectures at various universities and institutes on environment and disaster related subjects. She was the Program Manager, Tsunami Rehab Information Network (TRINet), Chennai where she continues as Program Advisor. She has edited numerous books, newsletters and has specialised in documentation.

Satish Babu graduated from the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, Haryana, and then went on to do a post graduate diploma in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), Anand. He was Executive and later CEO of the South Indian Federation of Fishermen Societies, the largest NGO working among small scale fishermen in India. From 2000, he became a promoter and President, InApp Information Technologies (India), Pvt. Ltd. He is a co-founder of Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE), an NGO working with ICTs, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and Access & Disability in the context of the Digital Divide. As of March 2011, he is the Director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS), an autonomous institution of the Government of Kerala.

Satish is also the Vice President and President-elect of the Computer Society of India (founded: 1965), the oldest and largest society of IT professionals in the country for 2011-12. He is the Chair of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Kerala Section, and the Asia-Pacific co-coordinator of IEEE Computer Society.